Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/73

 OF THE ALMA. 43 On the north, the roadstead is bounded by the chap. slopes, ledges, forts, and buildings constituting ' the Severnaya ur ' North Side of Sebastopol ; and it maybe renieinbered that nf ilie state ofstateof ,, , , „ . , , . the land the irtiid deiences m tluit quarter we si)oke m defences on 1, tl.e North an earlier page.* Ihere was there shown ground side. for believing that, even so late as the 25th of September, though much had been done since the day of the landing, the Star Fort, the key of the Xorth Side, could not have been suc- cessfully defended against a resolute attack by the Allies ; and on the 14th — the day to which we are now going to revert — the Severnaya was still less capable of offering a formidable resistance. On the soutli and south-west of the bay there The plateau is a high plateau or table-land, having much the south side, , A 1 r< 1 • 1 1 • 1 • called the shape 01 a heart or Saxon shield, with its top to- cueisoufse, wards the east and its pointed end towards the west. This plateau is called the Chersonese.t It is much higiier towards the east than towards the west. Along its eastern or landward side, it is abruptly divided from the plain by an acclivity rising to a height of from five to about seven hun- dred feet, and so extending from north to south, for a distance (in a straight line) of about eight miles, as to form a continuous buttress to the ' the luirbour ; hut I follow the more accunite language of the liii.ssiau.s, who called the great bay ' the roadstea<i,' and the iiiau-of-wnr's crock 'the harboitr of Sebastopol.' Ivlitioii. t That in, according to General de Tudlcljcn's ucmenclature.
 * ' Invasion of the Crimea,' vol. iii. chap. v. of Cabinet